A rescue effort can take many forms – a life raft, a firehose, an airlift. For animals whose populations are in decline from inbreeding, genetics itself can be a lifesaver.  Genomic research led by the University of California, Davis, reveals clues about montane red foxes’ distant past that may prove critical to their future survival. The study, published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, examines the potential for genetic rescue to help restore populations of these mountain-dwelling red foxes. The research is especially relevant for the estimated ...

A groundbreaking new study conducted by a team of researchers from Arizona State University, University of Washington and the University of Texas at Austin reveals that extreme heat significantly alters how people go about their daily lives, influencing everything from time spent at home to transportation choices. The study, titled "Understanding How Extreme Heat Impacts Human Activity-Mobility and Time Use Patterns," was recently published in Transportation Research Part D and underscores the urgent need for policy action ...

Digital Science announces ReadCube Pro, an AI-powered expansion of ReadCube, offering researchers new tools to simplify and accelerate literature management and literature monitoring workflows. The new AI Assistant and Literature Monitoring in ReadCube – an award-winning leader in literature management and full-text document delivery – transform the way research teams access, organize, review and monitor scholarly literature by providing them with enhanced search capabilities while helping to significantly reduce time spent ...

Leuven, 26 September 2024 –  A team of scientists led by Prof. Patrik Verstreken (VIB-KU Leuven) has identified a new genetic mutation that may cause a form of early-onset Parkinsonism. The mutation, located in a gene called SGIP1, was discovered in an Arab family with a history of Parkinson's symptoms that began at a young age. The study reveals that this mutation affects how brain cells communicate, providing new insights into the disease's development and potential treatment strategies. A genetic clue to Parkinsonism Parkinsonism is a group of neurological disorders that share similar symptoms, including motor dysfunction ...

More than a dozen bacterial species among the hundreds that live in people’s mouths have been linked to a collective 50% increased chance of developing head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), a new study shows. Some of these microbes had previously been shown to contribute to periodontal disease, serious gum infections that can eat away at the jawbone and the soft tissues that surround teeth. Experts have long observed that those with poor oral health are statistically more vulnerable than those with healthier ...

Sea robins are unusual animals with the body of a fish, wings of a bird, and walking legs of a crab. Now, researchers show that the legs of the sea robin aren’t just used for walking. In fact, they are bona fide sensory organs used to find buried prey while digging. This work appears in two studies published in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on September 26. “This is a fish that grew legs using the same genes that contribute to the development of our limbs and then repurposed these legs to find ...

Sea robins are ocean fish particularly suited to their bottom-dwelling lifestyle:  Six leg-like appendages make them so adept at scurrying, digging, and finding prey that other fish tend to hang out with them and pilfer their spoils. A chance encounter in 2019 with these strange, legged fish at Cape Cod’s Marine Biological Laboratory was enough to inspire Corey Allard to want to study them.   “We saw they had some sea robins in a tank, and they showed them to us, because they know we like weird animals,” said Allard, a ...

The number of days per year that are simultaneously extremely hot, dry, and have a high fire risk have as much as tripled since 1970 in some parts of South America. The results are published in a study in Communications Earth & Environment. South America is warming at a similar rate to the global average. However, some regions of the subcontinent are more at risk of the co-occurrence of multiple climate extremes. These compound extremes can have amplified impacts on ecosystems, economy, and human health. Raúl Cordero and colleagues calculated the number of days per year that each approximately 30 by 30 km grid ...

About The Study: This cross-sectional study found increased rates of both sudden unexpected infant death (SUID) and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a significant shift in epidemiology from the pre-pandemic period noted in June to December 2021. These findings support the hypothesis that off-season resurgences in endemic infectious pathogens may be associated with SUID rates, with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) rates in the U.S. closely approximating this shift. Further investigation into the role ...

About The Study: This study highlights the wide variation of nonprofit hospitals’ tax benefit across states, its high concentration among a small number of hospitals, and the primary role played by state and local taxes. Policy efforts to strengthen nonprofit hospitals’ taxpayer accountability are likely to be more effective when pursued at the local level. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Ge Bai, PhD, CPA, email gbai@jhu.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media ...

Scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and their colleagues have identified a gene responsible for some inherited retinal diseases (IRDs), which are a group of disorders that damage the eye’s light-sensing retina and threatens vision. Though IRDs affect more than 2 million people worldwide, each individual disease is rare, complicating efforts to identify enough people to study and conduct clinical trials to develop treatment. The study’s findings published today in JAMA Ophthalmology. In a small study of six unrelated participants, researchers linked the gene UBAP1L to different forms of ...

In some mammals, the timing of the normally continuous embryonic development can be altered to improve the chances of survival for both the embryo and the mother. This mechanism to temporarily slow development, called embryonic diapause, often happens at the blastocyst stage, just before the embryo implants in the uterus. During diapause, the embryo remains free-floating and pregnancy is extended. This dormant state can be maintained for weeks or months before development is resumed, when conditions are favorable. Although not all mammals use this reproductive ...

In both the natural world and human society, there commonly exist complex systems such as climate systems, ecological systems, and network systems. Due to the involvement of numerous interacting elements, complex systems can stay in multiple different states, and their overall behavior generally exhibits randomness and high disorder. For example, due to the complex interactions between factors such as solar radiation, terrain, and ocean currents, the climate system can exhibit various states like sunny, cloudy, and rainy. The dynamic changes and mutual influences of these factors make the behavior of the climate highly uncertain and difficult to predict accurately. For instance, the formation ...

Washington, September 26, 2024—The number of educational opportunities that children accrue at home, in early education and care, at school, in afterschool programs, and in their communities as they grow up are strongly linked to their educational attainment and earnings in early adulthood, according to new research. The results indicate that the large opportunity gaps between low- and high-income households from birth through the end of high school largely explain differences in educational and income achievement ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE Thursday, September 26, 2024 - 9 a.m. EDT Contact: NIH Office of Communications and Public Liaison NIH News Media Branch 301-496-5787 Statement by NIH on Research Misconduct Findings   Following an investigation, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has made findings of research misconduct against Eliezer Masliah, M.D., due to falsification and/or fabrication involving re-use and relabel of figure panels representing different experimental results in two publications. NIH will notify the two journals of its findings so that appropriate action can be taken. NIH initiated its research misconduct review process ...

WASHINGTON—Pregnant women who do not get enough sleep may be at higher risk of having children with neurodevelopmental delays, according to new research published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. Short sleep duration (SSD) is defined as sleeping less than seven hours per night. Pregnant woman may have trouble sleeping due to hormonal changes, pregnancy discomfort, frequent urination, and other factors. It’s been reported that almost 40% of pregnant women have SSD. These women may have ...

Astronomers have published a gigantic infrared map of the Milky Way containing more than 1.5 billion objects ― the most detailed one ever made. Using the European Southern Observatory’s VISTA telescope, the team monitored the central regions of our Galaxy over more than 13 years. At 500 terabytes of data, this is the largest observational project ever carried out with an ESO telescope. “We made so many discoveries, we have changed the view of our Galaxy forever,” says Dante Minniti, ...

Milan (Italy), 26 September 2024 - A toothpaste-based transistor is the latest innovation from the research team at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT-Italian Institute of Technology) in Milan, which pushes the boundaries of edible electronics. This innovative nano-device is expected to become a key component of future smart pills, designed to monitor health conditions from within the body and then safely dissolve after completing their function. The research findings have been published in the journal Advanced Science. Several commercial toothpaste formulations contain crystals of copper phthalocyanine, a blue pigment that acts as a whitening ...

The diverse biochemical composition of Japanese apricot fruits explains their broad spectrum of action on the human body. The high levels of key phenolic compounds and hydroxycinnamic acids contribute to various health benefits including anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and antimicrobial properties. A recent study published in Food Research International on July 19, 2024, led by Prof. Yukiharu Ogawa and Jutalak Suwannachot from Chiba University, quantitatively evaluated the changes in phenolic compounds and antioxidant activity during the production of Shiso-zuke Umeboshi (PP). The study also simulated the digestive process to characterize the release of these compounds and ...

Parkinson’s disease (PD), the second most common neurodegenerative disorder globally, has long baffled scientists with its progressive nature and debilitating effects on motor function. A recent study from the School of Medicine at Fujita Health University has brought new insights into the metabolic disruptions experienced by patients with PD. By analyzing the blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of the patients, researchers have discovered critical impairments in purine metabolism and the recycling of adenosine triphosphate (ATP)—the molecule responsible for energy production in cells. For years, scientists have noted the decreased levels ...

Busy with work and other obligations, some people concentrate their moderate-to-vigorous exercise in one or two days of the week or weekend. A study led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, has found that this “weekend warrior” pattern of exercise is associated with lower risk of developing 264 future diseases and was just as effective at decreasing risk as more evenly distributed exercise activity. Results are published in Circulation. “Physical activity is known to affect risk of many diseases,” said ...

Vaccination coverage for COVID-19 is high in both people with and without mental illness, according to a large multinational study led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and published in Nature Communications. However, Swedish registry data revealed that individuals with unmedicated mental illness have lower vaccination levels. The researchers analysed data from seven studies in five countries (Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Estonia, and Scotland) as part of the COVIDMENT consortium, totalling just over 325,000 individuals, and registry data from Sweden including over ...

The discovery of an Earth-like planet 4,000 light years away in the Milky Way galaxy provides a preview of one possible fate for our planet billions of years in the future, when the sun has turned into a white dwarf, and a blasted and frozen Earth has migrated beyond the orbit of Mars. This distant planetary system, identified by University of California, Berkeley, astronomers after observations with the Keck 10-meter telescope in Hawaii, looks very similar to expectations for the sun-Earth system: it consists of a white dwarf about half the mass of the sun and an Earth-size companion in an orbit twice as large as Earth’s today. That is likely to be Earth’s fate. ...

Rockville, MD ̶ ̶ When a woman becomes pregnant, her iron requirements increase almost tenfold to support fetal development as well as her own increased iron needs.  Her ability to meet these increased iron needs depends on her iron stores at the beginning of the pregnancy as well as the physiological adaptations that enhance iron absorption as pregnancy progresses.  These physiological adaptations, however, are not always enough to support a pregnant woman’s iron needs, especially ...

Four out of five pregnant women in Ireland are iron deficient by their third trimester, a University College Cork (UCC) study reveals. Researchers at the Irish Centre for Maternal and Child Health (INFANT) and School of Food and Nutritional Sciences in UCC have shown that over 80% of women are iron deficient by their third trimester.    The findings raise concerns as the participants in the study were a low-risk and generally healthy cohort. Iron deficiency during pregnancy is linked to increased risks of complications for both mother and child, including neurodevelopmental challenges for the baby.   This study is the largest of its kind globally and was ...